French study rocks GMO labeling debate

A controversial European study out Wednesday found that Monsanto’s trademark herbicide RoundUp and the genetically engineered corn and soybeans that it is used on (and which dominate the U.S. market), caused tumors and liver and kidney damage in rodents. The study also found excess tumors and organ damage in rats fed only the genetically engineered corn.

The study’s lead author is Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen. It was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, and backed by CRIIGEN, the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, a scientific group that is hostile to GMO’s, or genetically modified organisms, that are engineered to produce specific traits in crops, most commonly resistance to herbicides and production of insecticides within plants. Read the full study here.

California Right to Know, the group pushing California’s Prop. 37 to require labeling of genetically engineered foods, pounced on the study. Spokesperson Stacy Malkan said the most “important and shocking part of it is that this is the first available long-term study on GMOs, which have been in the food supply for the better part of 20 years.”

Seralini said rats fed a diet containing a RoundUp tolerant seed, or fed water with RoundUp at U.S. approved levels, died before rats that were fed a normal diet. They said 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, versus 30 percent and 20 percent in a control group.

Reuters reported that other experts were skeptical of the findings, accusing the authors of conduction a “statistical fishing trip.” Some scientists said the rats used in the study are prone to tumors, while others said Americans should be “dropping like flies” if the results are accurate, according to the Reuters story. A Daily Mail story also quotes scientists saying the study is deeply flawed: “Ottoline Leyser, Associate Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, said the study’s authors ‘do not suggest that the effects are caused by genetic modification. They describe effects of the roundup herbicide itself and effects that they attribute to the activity of the enzyme introduced into the roundup resistant maize. There is good evidence that introducing genes in to crops using GM techniques results in fewer changes to the crops than introducing them using conventional breeding.'”

Critics of genetic engineering have long complained of industry bias in scientific studies, saying there have been no long-term studies to establish safety. Since 1992, the U.S. regulatory regime has generally considered GMOs to be safe, holding that genetic engineering is all but identical to standard plant breeding techniques.

Jose Bove, vice-chairman of the European Parliament’s commission for agriculture who is hostile to GMOs, called for an immediate ban on cultivation and imports of GMO crops in the European Union.

Seralini and Dr. Michael Antoniou, molecular biologist at King’s College, London School of Medicine,who also opposes GMOs, will be holding a press briefing this afternoon.